2008.11.15 19:00 - Being and Ethics

This evening, Stim was the guardian, and I, Pema, posted the chat log on the wiki, and added a title. This was one of our four weekly guardian meetings, in which PaB guardians are encouraged to attend, in order to meet each other more frequently than otherwise would be the case in random sessions.

Adelene Dawner: Hullo :)
Stim Morane: Hi Adelene!
Adelene Dawner grumbles. "Why do we have a christmas tree?"
Adelene Dawner: hi Max :)
Stim Morane: Well, I've been away ... can't say.
Maxine Walden: hi, Adelene and Stim
Stim Morane: Hi Maxine
Stim Morane: Are you thinking of deleting the tree, Adelene?
Adelene Dawner: I don't think it was here yesterday. It is *too* early for a christmas tree.
Stim Morane: I agree
Stim Morane: Yes, although not in a very "sorted out" way.
Stim Morane: Hi Pema.
Maxine Walden: understand, Stim
Pema Pera: Hi there! I had terrible trouble logging into SL and then I couldn't tp . . . finally I made it!
Adelene Dawner: Hi Pem. We were just commenting about the christmas tree. It is *not* time for christams yet.
Pema Pera: who put it there?
Adelene Dawner: Ah. Moon.
Pema Pera: hmmmmm
Maxine Walden: hi, gen
genesis Zhangsun: Hi!
Pema Pera: Hi Gen and everybody!
Stim Morane: Hi gen!
Maxine Walden: bet it is another Storm creation, the Christmas tree
genesis Zhangsun: Hey Stim!
Adelene Dawner: No, Max. Moon made it and put it there.
Maxine Walden: ah, sorry, got it wrong. Moon's creation!
Pema Pera: Hi Jseb!
Pema Pera: and goodby Jseb
Adams Rubble: Hello Everyone :)
Stim Morane: Hi Adams
Maxine Walden: hi Adams
genesis Zhangsun: Hi Adams
Adelene Dawner: It's nice, but the local stores have been doing Christmas since a week after Halloween at the latest and I'm already annoyed at it. Christmas season isn't supposed to start 'till *after* Thanksgiving. :P
Pema Pera: Hi Adams
Maxine Walden: Adams, with Abigail do you feel more historical?
Pema Pera: Hi Steve!
Adams Rubble: Yes, I am fast becoming history :)
genesis Zhangsun: Hey Steve
Maxine Walden: hi, Steve
Adams Rubble: Hi Steve
stevenaia Michinaga: hannukkah bush...charming
Pema Pera: hehehe, Adams!
Stim Morane: Hi stevenaia
stevenaia Michinaga: ...smile
Maxine Walden: ah, speedy history, Adams
stevenaia Michinaga: hello
Maxine Walden: you always bring a Ray of Light, Steve
stevenaia Michinaga: thank you maxine
Maxine Walden: nice surroundings, these, I think
Stim Morane: yes
Pema Pera: Did you all read Solobill's contribution, recently, to the wiki?
genesis Zhangsun: re Intentionality?
Pema Pera: yes
genesis Zhangsun: yes I very appreciated it
Maxine Walden: have not had a chance as yet
Adams Rubble: yes
Pema Pera: http://playasbeing.wik.is/Guardians%27_Contributions/Solobill/The_Spirit_of_Intentionality
Maxine Walden: but appreciated his previous posting
stevenaia Michinaga: as did I
Pema Pera: I enjoyed the way he characterized the PaB exploration in three words:
Pema Pera: to still, to drop, to perceive
Maxine Walden: lovely description
Pema Pera: we stop, we drop, we see
Maxine Walden: I've been a bit pre-occupied with a paper and concept of 'evil' which I know we don't think much about here, but
Maxine Walden: just to say that I have been studying it some and it seems to arise in everyday people when they slip from their humanitarian selves, for whatever reason
Maxine Walden: and the stunning thing is that we can all do that because it is due to very ordinary human functioning, (or misfunctioning). Sorry, just to say that '
Maxine Walden: and maybe clear my mind for 'being
Pema Pera: the question is what we gain by calling it "evil", by using that label as if it is something substantial and special . . . .
Pema Pera: it often seems like a way to shove it to the side, as something different from the "normal" way of things . . . .
Maxine Walden: the term evil is interesting, it seems to my mind be a distancing term, as if 'evil out there, ...far away from me...'
Pema Pera: (unlike you're a Calvinist and then everything and everybody is evil!)
Maxine Walden: hoho
Maxine Walden: yes, the 'get it as far from me as possible...I don't want to be contaminated with that 'bad' stuff...'
Pema Pera: yes, Maxine, most uses of the world evil seem to have that effect
Pema Pera: instead of accepting that good and bad is part of human nature
Maxine Walden: when what solves the situation is the compassionate appreciate that it is all part of us
Maxine Walden: yes, agree precisely Pema
genesis Zhangsun: Hey Jseb!
Pema Pera: wb Jseb!
Jsebdavis Dirval: hi
Jsebdavis Dirval: soo
Jsebdavis Dirval: whre may i sit
Stim Morane: Hi Jseb
genesis Zhangsun: anywhere you want :)
Jsebdavis Dirval: k
Jsebdavis Dirval: ihave a question
Jsebdavis Dirval: how do i get my avy to look more like a boy
genesis Zhangsun: I am happy to tell you all about that later Jseb :)
Maxine Walden: not sure, Jse, I am still learning about the av things
Jsebdavis Dirval: ok thanks
Pema Pera: Jseb, have people here told you about our web site yet?
Jsebdavis Dirval: no
Pema Pera: http://playasbeing.wik.is/ is our web site
Pema Pera: and we keep a blog there of our conversations
Pema Pera: do you mind for us to include you as well?
Jsebdavis Dirval: gen i kinda want like hair and brighter skin
Jsebdavis Dirval: and like free stuf
Pema Pera: sorry, Jseb, I don't think we can help you with that. In the welcome center nearby there are mentors who can help you
Pema Pera: straight to the South of here
genesis Zhangsun: I just sent you an IM describing the basics
Pema Pera: Coming back to the notion of "evil", Maxine
Maxine Walden: yes...
Pema Pera: we can look at people as havil evil tendencies
Pema Pera: and other evil aspect
Pema Pera: but to conclude then that they ARE evil is a very different thing
Pema Pera: putting their tendencies in stone . . . .
Maxine Walden: oh, agree, putting their tendencies in stone, buries them, as it were; is a deathnell, as if there is no reprieve
Pema Pera: similarly of course with people who are saintly, or just very nice people . ..
Maxine Walden: and there are states of mind which get mired in saint or sinner qualities, both extremes it seems to me are deadly
Maxine Walden: because they are far from 'reality' and the human condition
Pema Pera: you mentioned a paper that you thought about, with respect to evil -- can you say more about that?
Maxine Walden: yes, it is a paper reframing evil, to make some sense of it in terms of my experience in Berlin
Maxine Walden: and considering how ordinary people could get caught up in doing unspeakable things this past century
Maxine Walden: Even Berlin rising as a monumental city still has aspects of its past which are difficult to embrace emotionally...so I was trying to study the very human underpinnings for those extremes of behaviour, cruelty...
Maxine Walden: and there was an interesting experience for me, the rubble ground of the Gestapo hq
genesis Zhangsun: ooo eerie yes I remember too
Maxine Walden: which after now several generations no one has been able to build upon, because they come upon evidence of the atrocities...
Maxine Walden: and the shard, the rubble was haunting to me...stirring some of my thinking
stevenaia Michinaga: you felt the presence of evil?
Maxine Walden: and I just recently came to the conclusion that the sharded, rubble mind is both the perpatrator and the victim of such atrocities...
Maxine Walden: and when I realized that the haunting aspect of the sharded Gestapo ground fell into place...as if a bit more understanding had occurred
Maxine Walden: Steve, I did not feel the presence of evil, but
Maxine Walden: could not get my mind around the enormity of atrocity that had gone on at the Gestapo ground, a very strange experience for me
Maxine Walden: because I usually can envision even extreme events or actions of people
Maxine Walden: and what I later realized was that my mind was sharded in trying to envision it, that it was more than my integrated mind could do...that there are some things
Maxine Walden: which decimate the human mind
Maxine Walden: make it shards...and maybe that is the human condition
Pema Pera: Hi Robba!
Robba Foxtrot: hi
Pema Pera: come join us if you like
Robba Foxtrot: what are you doing
Pema Pera: right now we're talking about a rather heavy subject
Adams Rubble: That was a powerful experience Maxine
Pema Pera: but normally we chat about the nature of reality
Pema Pera: in an informal way
Maxine Walden: yes, it was, Adams
Robba Foxtrot: i'm new to this place, so bear with me
Maxine Walden: but Pema, maybe this is an aspect of realtiy as well
Pema Pera: sure, no problem, Robba
Maxine Walden: that which we cannot bear to hold in mind
Pema Pera: of course, Maxine!
Pema Pera: Robba, Maxine just mentioned visiting Berlin, and being reminded of the evil of the Nazi regime
Pema Pera: and indeed, the best and the worst that humans do is all part of reality . . . .
Maxine Walden: right...
genesis Zhangsun: sorry Maxine I may just be a little lost but could you say how this relates to the stop, drop, and see
Robba Foxtrot: yes it was an evil time
genesis Zhangsun: was this a response to that?
genesis Zhangsun: Hey Corvi!
stevenaia Michinaga: hello corvi
Pema Pera: (for Robba: we're talking about http://playasbeing.wik.is/Guardians%27_Contributions/Solobill/The_Spirit_of_Intentionality)
Adams Rubble: Hello Corvi
Pema Pera: HI Corvi!
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Hi all!
Maxine Walden: gen, I think that I was so involved in this paper which I am preparing for publication that I could not easily stop, drop and see until I could get this out of me a bit
Stim Morane: Hi Corvi
Maxine Walden: hi, Corvi
genesis Zhangsun: :)
genesis Zhangsun: ok just didn't know if I had missed something
Maxine Walden: no, don't think so
stevenaia Michinaga: hello Maggie
Pema Pera: Robba, our wiki is http://playasbeing.wik.is/ and we keep a kind of blog there of our conversations. Do you mind if we include your lines as well, with the rest?
Robba Foxtrot: oh i'm sorry but this is the first time i've ever joined a virtual reality game
Magdalena Colclough: Hi all
Robba Foxtrot: sure
Adams Rubble: Hello Magdalena
Magdalena Colclough: just Maggie :)
genesis Zhangsun: Hey Maggie
Stim Morane: Hi Maggie
Pema Pera: Hi Maggie
Magdalena Colclough: hi :)
Maxine Walden: hi, Maggie
Pema Pera: Robba, we're talking in a playful way, often, but this is not a game or role play, rather a group of people sharing their explorations of the nature of reality -- just happen to do it in virtuality :)
Robba Foxtrot: oh sorry for my ignorance but i've only been logged on for about two hours
Robba Foxtrot: i don't know what i am doing
Pema Pera: no problem at all, Robba -- we all had to learn!
stevenaia Michinaga: happy Birthday Robba
Magdalena Colclough: hi Adelene :)
Pema Pera: feel free to just sit here and chat, or listen, as you like
Magdalena Colclough: yes, happy Rezz Day!
Robba Foxtrot: thanx
Maxine Walden: Adelene is back
Maxine Walden: big purr
Adelene Dawner is here but not here.
Magdalena Colclough: I know that feeling
Pema Pera: But, Gen and Maxine, the stopping and seeing seems very much appropriate for what Maxine described, don't you think so?
Maxine Walden: actually yes
Pema Pera: stopping to let sink in and make sense and . . . see
genesis Zhangsun: yes I think so that is why I thought I missed the connection
genesis Zhangsun: because there clealry seems to be one
Pema Pera: and seeing is almost the opposite as judging . . . .
Maxine Walden: I think what sank in but took time for me to see clearly was the enormity of the unspeakable, not to condemn it, but just to try to see it
Maxine Walden: and to try to imagine being a Berliner...could one really keep all that happened in that city in mind and go about one's business? likely not, one would have to stop, drop and see to contact it
genesis Zhangsun: it is really difficult to imagine that I part of a "Being" that encompasses all of this the good and the evil
genesis Zhangsun: and that those concepts don't really exist from Being's point of view
genesis Zhangsun: yet they cause so much havoc
genesis Zhangsun: is Being ethical?
Pema Pera: they do not ultimately exists, Gen, but that's true for us too . . . .
Pema Pera: so good and evil are as real or unreal as we are . . . .
Pema Pera: (the we we normally identify with, that is)
Maxine Walden: I think 'evil' can come into existence or expression when we lose track of our mindfulness...when indifference sets in that can feel violent to another
Maxine Walden: but it is not that we are trying to be evil, it is an experience from a point of view perhaps
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I have a sense that in as much as one uncover's being..it is not possible to do the things that I would consider evil....
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and I' feel confused as to how that plays into this conversation.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: or maybe I'm jsut confused in general.
Pema Pera: Yes, I think so, Corvi, evil is the result of increasing obscuration, I think . . .
Corvuscorva Nightfire: it seems to me this is so..
genesis Zhangsun: a feeling that if you are seeing as Being nothing could go wrong Corvi?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: from the conversations I've had with others here..no...not like that, Gen.
genesis Zhangsun: you could do no evil
Corvuscorva Nightfire: but that values and actions would have a flowy effect....
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and that...
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I'm having a hard time articulating the next concept.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: but something about seeing clearly...and Adelene's idea of metaflexability.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: dancing more lightly in the world.
Pema Pera: and in response to Gen, ethics is very important for us, though each sense of "ethics" depends on the context, the framework in which it formulated -- rules at first, and then with more openness something more spontaneous -- what "ethics" can be for Being is hard to fathom unless we are completely eye-to-eye with Being
Pema Pera: and yes, Corvi, indeed!
Stim Morane: Sorry, I need to go at this point. Thanks!
genesis Zhangsun: Bye Stim
Adams Rubble: bye Stim
Stim Morane: Bye everyone1
Pema Pera: bye Stim
Stim Morane: *!
Maxine Walden: ethics may offer the boundaries which provide safety and openness for our encounters and thinking together
Maxine Walden: bye stim
genesis Zhangsun: Me too I must be going
Magdalena Colclough: bye Stim
Adams Rubble: bye Gen
genesis Zhangsun: bye Adams
Maxine Walden: yes, bye gen
genesis Zhangsun: bye all
Magdalena Colclough: bye Gen
Pema Pera: bye Gen
genesis Zhangsun: bye MAggie
Corvuscorva Nightfire: bye gen and stim.
genesis Zhangsun: by Pem and Corvi :)
Maxine Walden: think it is about time for me to go as well.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: bye Maxine.
Maxine Walden: Appreciate all the conversation tonight
Adams Rubble: bye Maxine
Maxine Walden: see you all again soon
stevenaia Michinaga: the begining of a very intereting one
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Three asked this question in a previous chat..I'm not sure if it's up yet.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: the question of being and evil....
stevenaia Michinaga: no, corvi, I;ve been waiting for it too
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Pema Pera: bye Robba, thanks for stopping by
Pema Pera: yes, Corvi?
stevenaia Michinaga: hello Zeppelin
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Steve talked about Love and not love...
Corvuscorva Nightfire: it was very interesting.
Zeppelin Parx: hello
Pema Pera: Hi Zeppelin adn Zenik
stevenaia Michinaga: actually "no love"
Zeppelin Parx: hello everyone
Pema Pera: feel free to join us!
Pema Pera: Our wiki is on http://playasbeing.wik.is/
Zeppelin Parx: thankyou
Pema Pera: we like to add our conversations to our blog on that wiki
Zeppelin Parx: ok
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Here it is" does being have a darkside" http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2008/11/2008.11.07_01:00_-_Flow_and_happiness/2008.11.11_19:00_-_Does_BEING_have_a_dark_side
Pema Pera: Is it okay with you both to be included in the blog?
Pema Pera: thanks, Zep!
Zeppelin Parx: yes
Adams Rubble slips away with a hearty hi-yo Silver, away............ :)
Adams Rubble: bye everyone :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: bye adams!
Pema Pera: bye Adams
Corvuscorva Nightfire: nice hair!
Magdalena Colclough: bye Adams
Zeppelin Parx: bye adams
stevenaia Michinaga: it was not posted earlier, Corvi, thank you
Pema Pera: looking forward to reading it!
Pema Pera: Maggie, how are you?
Magdalena Colclough shrugs
Magdalena Colclough: I'm ok
Pema Pera: long time no see!
Magdalena Colclough smiles
Pema Pera: glad you stopped by again
Magdalena Colclough: I've been around a little
Pema Pera: must have missed you, sorry
Magdalena Colclough: it's good to see you
Pema Pera: have been pretty busy with my work lately
Magdalena Colclough: I can imagine
Pema Pera: have you been to the Kira Cafe yet?
Magdalena Colclough: no
Pema Pera: wanna come over?
Magdalena Colclough: sure
stevenaia Michinaga: everytime I go it is empty
Pema Pera: we've been here for more than an hour
Pema Pera: ah! Steve! you have to come at the right time
stevenaia Michinaga: will be good to see people there
Pema Pera: happy hour every day at 2 pm SLT
Pema Pera: 5 pm your time, fitting!
stevenaia Michinaga: indeed
Magdalena Colclough: it's always happy hour for Steve
Pema Pera: Zeppelin, do you want to come along?
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Pema Pera: hehehe, Maggie!
Zeppelin Parx: sure how do i get there i'm a newbie
Pema Pera: and Corvi and Adelene?
stevenaia Michinaga: join us Corvi?
stevenaia Michinaga: Ade
Pema Pera: I'll give you a tp Zep
Pema Pera: when you get it you just click on it
Pema Pera: (teleport = tp)